Battery life with Exchange Horrible! Wifi worse than 3g?

[turbo63]

OK, I my wife and I have Iphone 3g's. Her battery is lasting 2 days mine is lasting 6hrs. Only difference is Exchange and some apps. Our use was pretty similar other than I get around 60 emails a day she gets around 7. I understand a difference but that is way too big not to be a software issue.

Re-cap of first two days with my Iphone with Exchange -

First day - In the office and I could not get the Iphone to connect to Wifi so all I had was 3g and the phone lasted 13hrs with very heavy use.

Day Two - Got the WEP to work on the Wifi and the battery only lasted 7hrs with less email and less use than day one.

Tweeted about it on Twitter and someone replies that they did a test... no exchange configuration on iphone and the battery lasted 24 plus hours... with exchange 6 hrs

So it seems Exchange is killing the battery's on the Iphones, and maybe 3g is better than Wifi, or at least WEP wifi. ( I have non-wep wifi at home and it seems to last forever for my wife?)

I will test no Wifi again tomorrow and see what happens.

Anyone else notice the same thing. Did not see any battery/Exchange postings already.

 

[rizajj]

i use exchange (fetch, 15 min) and wifi at work/home, and 3G in between. I talk on the phone for maybe 15 min a day, if that, but I definitely use the Maps, App Store, Safari, and apps a decent amount (2-3 hours per day of 'usage'). I have a full charge when I leave in the morning, and I get down to about 50% when I plug it in at night before I go to bed. I wish there was an app or a feature where we could get accurate percentages of battery life remaining.

Anyway, are you sure your phone is charging properly? Mine at first was not. I'd leave it plugged in, but the batter meter wouldn't move too much, even after several hours. I then realized that the little "charging" icon at the top right went from the "lightning bolt" to the "Ac plug" after about 20 minutes. It shouldn't go to the "AC Plug" icon until it is fully charged.

My solution was to turn off the iphone and let it charge that way. That worked and since then the unit charges normally, and the problem I described above has gone away.

Hope that helps. What you are describing definitely is not normal.

 

[AustinSTI]

Sounds like a bad phone. My 2G has exchange and the battery life is fine.

 

[turbo63]

OK, Trying it without WIFI today and it seems to be working better. Still have all my battery bars started at 7:30 PST today.

Exchange with Push however seems to be constantly eating up the usage.

It shows 1hr 22 min of usage and 1r 50 min of standby.

I have used it for maybe 15 min max today either talking or typing, maps etc.

I have received 17 emails today from Exchange and have my personal IMAP email syncing every 15 min.

I might need to got to checking my Exchange every 15min, but that would be a step back from my crappy WM Moto Q that would last a day and a half with the standard bat with push. I would only gain around 30 min with the Q by turning off push.

Below is everything I am trying today for better life

Screen is turned down very low, GPS is off, Wifi is off (will try it on again on Monday), I also removed all my apps I downloaded. Lastly I have fully discharged it every night then fully charge it overnight.

Actually how do you tell it is full charged? I just see a battery that is all the way green, anything else?

Sorry for the long rants!

Funny a couple of people I know are having this same issue but no one on here.

 

[ShaqFu]

I can make it through the work day about 6-7 hours with the following:

1) Yahoo Push Mail 20+ emails per day
2) Work Emails 20+ Emails (MS Exchange)
3) Personal Email 15+ per day

This is about what I was getting with my Treo 700p on Sprint service.

Push emails just take a lot out of the battery.

This is also with 3G/Bluetooth/Location options on.

 

[FearlessFreep]

Calibrate your battery.

I was having a hard time making it through the day until I did a full discharge-recharge (4+ hours) cycle. I'm on the second of a planned three and already I've seen a huge difference.

I am on Exchange push and get about 50 emails a day. I have WiFi, Bluetooth and Location Services off. Everything else is on. I am currently at 1 day, 18 hours and I just got the 20% remaining warning. And yes, I've used my phone for calls and other things during that time as well.

So - Let you phone run all the way down until it shuts off. Plug it back in an charge for 4-6 hours straight through (without unplugging, even if the meter says it's full). Repeat 2-3x and you should see a big difference.

 

[wildmilne]

wifi is tough on the battery, while in line for 3G iphone...approx 3.5 hours my 1st gen iphone (using agile mobile messenger) went from near full charge to dead. I was connected to the mall's WIFI at the time.

 

[turbo63]

Wow big improvement. WIFI off, Location OFF, All apps removed

Just hit half battery life. Yesterday it was dead by this time.

 

[malmgren]

Ditto on the weak battery life with Exchange. I ran the first few days with Exchange Push enabled and the battery was in the red by the time I went home from work. I get roughly 200-400 emails a day at work. After moving it to Fetch every 30 minutes, the battery life improved dramatically and I can last a full 16 hours before going into the red zone. I don't use the Exchange email feature on my phone so much, but it has to be on for the calendar invites to get processed.

Also turning off 3G while I'm in the office helped some too. Actually now, I just turn it on when I need to. Until I get my two docks (one for home and one for work) then this solution is very doable.